Celebrating David Bowie, a Star Who Burned Bright to the Last

As fans mourned David Bowie on the streets of London, Berlin and New York on Monday, a flurry of events served as a reminder of just what an outsize — and active — presence he had remained in the worlds of music, art, fashion and performance right up to the very end of his life.

Mr. Bowie’s latest album, “Blackstar,” which was released on Friday, was already on track to reach the top of the charts before he died. In the Netherlands, the Groninger Museum opened, even though it is usually closed on Mondays, so that grieving fans could see “David Bowie Is,” the blockbuster retrospective of his life that has been touring the world since 2013.

In London, where the fashion world had gathered for men’s wear shows, a Paul Smith presentation that was put together before Mr. Bowie’s death was full of Bowie photographs and memorabilia. In New York, tickets went on sale Monday for a star-studded tribute to Mr. Bowie at Carnegie Hall that was recast as a memorial concert. And in a Manhattan studio where Mr. Bowie recorded some of his biggest hits, Bowie songs were being heard once again on Monday for the cast recording of “Lazarus,” the hit Off Broadway show Mr. Bowie was co-author of.

“I’m really glad we were all able to be together today and celebrate the chance we’ve all been given to perform this show, perform this music,” Michael C. Hall, the star of the production, said during a break in the recording at Avatar Studios, which was known as Power Station when Mr. Bowie recorded the album “Let’s Dance” there more than 30 years ago.

The breadth of Mr. Bowie’s long, varied career — in which he incarnated different characters and styles — was evident from the testimonials that poured in from collaborators as different as the proto-punk icon Iggy Pop (“David’s friendship was the light of my life”) and the funk master Nile Rodgers (“Your life changed my life”).

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In Brixton, the London neighborhood where David Bowie grew up, fans gathered Monday beneath a mural painted by the Australian street artist James Cochran, a.k.a. Jimmy C.CreditNiklas Halle'N/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In addition to the messages of condolence from politicians and world leaders came this message, posted on Twitter by the German Foreign Office, “Good-bye, David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall.” It contained a link to his anthem “Heroes,” with its depiction of love in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

Mr. Bowie’s death on Sunday, two days after his 69th birthday, stunned fans, colleagues and friends who tried to digest the meaning of a career that spanned not only decades, but also eras. Many realized with a start that his new album, “Blackstar,” was not so much a comeback or the introduction of a new persona as it was a valedictory. The song “Lazarus,” whose video had its premiere Thursday and had been seen more than four million times on YouTube by Monday afternoon, begins with the words “Look up here, I’m in heaven.”

In Brixton, the formerly working-class, immigrant-heavy neighborhood where Mr. Bowie was born, Alison Baker, 44, left flowers in front of a large mural that depicts Mr. Bowie in his Aladdin Sane era.

“I’m not one for collective mourning, but there’s something that’s been very special about my life because of David Bowie,” Ms. Baker said.

Her sister Janice recalled that when they were growing up in suburban western Australia, anybody “who wanted to do something against the banality of suburbia would have haircuts like Bowie and would wear Bowie clothes.”

At Mr. Bowie’s childhood home, at 40 Stansfield Road, there were boards in the windows. (It sold in June for 1 million pounds, or $1.5 million, according to the Land Registry for England and Wales.) A few bouquets were left outside on Monday morning, along with a single candle burning and a note with two words: “Thank you.”

In New York City, bouquets of flowers, flickering candles and a piece of paper with the message “Starman Forever,” were left outside Mr. Bowie’s SoHo home.

Patrice Mack, a real estate broker from the East Village who brought a bouquet, said that listening to Mr. Bowie’s music as a teenager gave her the “feeling you could do anything, and it was OK.” She chose roses in colors to symbolize the various parts of Mr. Bowie’s career: pink for Ziggy Stardust; white for the Thin White Duke.

“He influenced what books to read, what music to listen to, what movies to see probably more than any education my folks paid for,” she said.

Around the world, fans listened to Bowie songs, sent messages to friends reminiscing about Bowie concerts from decades ago, grappled with his loss and thought about what his music, and his life, had meant to them. Some spoke of how he opened them to the idea of the avant-garde, and others of how his openness about his bisexuality and androgynous characters, dating back to the days of Glam Rock and even earlier, had made it acceptable to come out as gay, or bisexual, or different.

Spotify said that streams of Mr. Bowie’s music grew 2,700 percent from Sunday to Monday. And at iTunes, Mr. Bowie’s albums had taken over much of the Top 10 of the store’s chart rankings, with “Blackstar” at No. 1 on Monday afternoon; “Best of Bowie,” No. 2; and “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,” his hit from 1972, at No. 4.

Stars like Madonna and Lady Gaga posted testimonials to him.

“I never felt like I fit in growing up in Michigan,” Madonna wrote on Facebook. “Like an oddball or a freak. I went to see him in concert at Cobo Arena in Detroit. It was the first concert I’d ever been to. I snuck out of the house with my girlfriend wearing a cape. We got caught after and I was grounded for the summer. I didn’t care. I already had many of his records and was so inspired by the way he played with gender confusion.”

Yoko Ono recalled Mr. Bowie’s friendship with her husband, John Lennon, who collaborated with Mr. Bowie on the song “Fame,” and how it grew to friendship with her family.

“They were well matched in intellect and talent,” she wrote on Facebook. “As John and I had very few friends, we felt David was as close as family.”

Many fans took the loss personally. John Boyle, a writer from Merrick, on Long Island, placed a tall white candle outside Mr. Bowie’s SoHo home and kneeled. After a few moments, he crossed himself, rose, and shouted “Lazarus arise!” a reference to a song on Mr. Bowie’s “Blackstar.”

“There’s something within his canon for each and every one of us,” said Mr. Boyle, 60. “He covered every aspect of the human heart, and I really will miss him.”